Every time I go to work I always stop to talk to person who sells the Chicago Tribune at the train station.  Today the subject of conversation was that giant of Chicago Journalism, Mike Royko.  He was the Pulitzer Prize winning author that made names such as Slats Grobnik, Dr. I.M. Kookie and the Billy Goat Tavern famous.

What brought this all to mind, and made it more than a passing conversation (albeit with an interesting person with which to converse) is a recent article by Tobold entitled “Why non-consensual pvp will remain a niche.”  You can read it here , excerpts are below:

PvP is best when it is “fair”, which usually means somehow symetrical. Equal number of players on each side, with equal power. – Tobold

Non-consensual PvP is like sitting down for a game of chess with a human opponent and finding that your opponent brought a .45 revolver – Tobold

Now on the face of it all I tend to agree. Before we go on I will note that when he said, “…otherwise he’ll use his superior intelligence to gank you when you are defenseless” my initial thought was that might rarely equates with intellect, the two usually being inversely related if not downright mutually exclusive.  After reflecting upon the words, it occurred to me that Tobold simply meant that the ganker was more intelligent than the game ai (artificial intelligence) – again I would tend to disagree, but that is not the point.  Then what is the point you might ask?

The point is gankers need love too.

If Mike Royko can explore alternative viewpoints through fictional characters, the staff here at No Prisoners, No Mercy can (and has) as well.  With that in mind let’s create a fictional ganker – we can call him Sunyar “Sunny” Grozdins. Now let’s take Sunny and put him in a real situation:

Back when I was still active in Ultima Online I was grinding away on the mobs on the Fellucia side (the side of each server to where pvp’ers had been flung in contempt). I was afk (away from keyboard) for a short while; after all real life sometimes must take precedence over virtual worlds, even if in the form of brief sorties in search of a place to relieve one’s bladder. When I came back to the keyboard Sunny had ganked my defenseless character and headed back into the wilds of Britannia.  Now the astute reader will note that I was ganked while afk and wonder how I found out that the culprit was Sunny Grozdins. It seems that Sunny and I both had a mutual acquaintance, and stranger still, was that acquaintance was a GM.  In the course of a conversation, Sunny found out from our GM friend that I am, in reality, a nun.  The immediate response, I am told, was “OH MY GOD I KILLED A NUN I AM GOING TO HELL!!!”

Sunny apologized profusely through our mutual GM friend.  The message I sent back was simply that he didn’t kill me he killed a character.  I assured him that if it made him feel any better I would hunt him down and return the favor by ganking him right back.

The story and the reaction by the ganker may be real; however I don’t really know the ganker’s name (fictional or otherwise) as my GM friend never told me.  But imagine the situation from Sunny’s viewpoint…

Here is a poor sole that had faith in the anonymity of the internet.  The way it is supposed to be is no harm, no foul.  Through a twist of fate that anonymity was suddenly, and cruelly broken.  Sunny depends on that anonymity; he needs that outlet. After all he couldn’t very well go about ganking people, nor even shouting phrases such as “nom, nom, nom” in real life could he? Well – not without getting his ass kicked around the block at least, and more probably ending up as the cell mate of someone who is 6 foot five inches, weight, 200 pounds (all muscle) and is nick named “killer”.

Worst still, is that tort law (at least in Illinois) appears to be changing according to the local papers. The anonymity to make scurrilous comments relating to someone’s dubious parentage under guise of a pseudonym may no longer be protected if a local politician has her way.

At this juncture we can’t help but feel pity for poor Sunny who’s is beset on all sides be influences that would take away one of the few simple pleasures he has in life.  If Tobold is right that niche that is non-consensual pvp may be harder and harder to find as economic times worsen.  If the court systems have their way it may that kicking someone’s butt around the block virtually could one day involve as much risk as trying to do it while facing down someone who is perfectly capbable of kicking Sunny’s butt right back…all he wants to do is be left alone to be able to kick butt without having his name taken.

What is a poor ganker to do? Gankers need love too.

(posted by: Webmaster for Julie Whitefeather)